I was obsessed with the shimmering rainbow glory of tropical fish – then I found drag | Amrou Al-Kadhi

As a gay Muslim, working in an aquarium gave me a sanctuary. But I could never find what I was searching for among the clownfish

I was 13 when my faith in Allah first collapsed. As a child, I had a kind of obsession with God, but after years of conditioning to believe that my burgeoning sexuality was an unredeemable sin, Allah had become a source of fervent terror.

Losing my faith left me with a yearning for a new cosmic connection to the world around me. So when I stumbled across a small aquatics shop in a suburban part of west London, its holographic glint seemingly beckoning me inside was utterly irresistible.

Amrou Al-Kadhi is a British-Iraqi writer, drag performer and film-maker. Their work focuses on queer identity, cultural representation and race politics

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